Poem Review: Blackberry-Picking and Blackberry Eating (Essay Sample)

(Name)
(Instructors’ name)
(Course)
(Date)
The Different Time Frames of the poems “Blackberry-Picking” and ‘Blackberry Eating”
In the two poems titled “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell and “Blackberry Picking” by Seamus Heaney , we are treated to different accounts of the events surrounding the blackberry season in late August and late September.
The focus of this paper is to therefore offer a detailed comparison and contrast of the different time frames offered by the two poems, relying on the descriptive accounts of their poets.
We can deduce from the titles of the poems that they set off to describe different activities guided by the seasonality of the blackberries, thereby emphasizing the different time frames in which they are set. Kinnell focuses on “blackberry eating” while Heaney focuses on “blackberry picking”. The opening lines of the two poems further makes this difference in time-frame more apparent, with Heaney’s poem clearly asserting that “ I love to go out in late September[…]” (Line 1) and Kinnell stating that “ Late August, given heavy rain and sun […]”(Line 1).
Based on these different time frames, the two poems offer a detailed account of the activities that surround these periods, given the different stages of ripening that the blackberries are in.
Kinnell offers a most detailed and descriptive account of the events that occur when the first blackberries ripen.The second line of the poem states that the blackberries ripen for one whole week: “ For a full week, the blackberries would ripen” (Line 2). The different colors of the blackberries, given their different stages of ripening are also described:
“At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.” (Line 3-4).
This indicates that not all the blackberries are ripe at this time, since the ripening period is just beginning and it will take much more time before they are all of the same color.
However, in Heaney’s poem, we are treated to a similarly detailed descriptive account of a different time-frame altogether of the blackberry season. First of all, Heaney states that by late September, all the blackberries are ripe, rendering them black in color and no account of green berries is given like in Kinnell’s case. Heaney in fact describes the blackberries as overripe by this time “[…] among the fat, overripe, icy, blackberries […]”( Line 2).
Kinnell offers us the unforgettable account of the relish in eating the first blackberries which makes the period all the more worthwhile and enjoyable by stating that “ You ate the first one and its flesh was sweet (Line 5)”. Kinnell goes ahead to liken the blackberry juice to wine by asserting that “Like thickened wine […]” (Line 6). However, it is by stating that “summer’s blood” was in the blackberry juice that Kinnell offers us deep insight into what this period meant for them. From this assertion, we can deduce that this period is the highlight of the summer season, because being the ‘summer’s blood’ most certainly there could be no life in summer without this period.
From acquiring an idea of the apprehension with which this period is greeted, an understanding of the activities surrounding it is acquired. Kinnell states that by being driven by the taste of the blackberries, they venture out with milk cans, pea tins and jam-pots to go pick the fruits:
“Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for picking […]” (Line 7-8)
“Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots” (Line 9).
We are also given an account of the adventure associated with picking the blackberries where Kinnell explains that they had to trek around cornfields, hayfields and potato-drills, probably because not all the blackberries are ripe and therefore they have to look for the ripe ones:
“we trekked and picked until the can were full” ( Line 12).
They however still end up with unripe blackberries as seen in the description of the appearance of the blackberries in their cans , thus emphasizing that the ripening season of the blackberries is just beginning:
“Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned” (Line 13-14).
The necessity to store the fruits, given that they are still in early stages of ripening however leads to the lowest moment of the period when Kinnell describes the disappointment associated with the discovery of fungus in their cache of blackberries stored in the byre. The fungus leads to the fermentation of the stored berries, which cause them to stink, and this so disappoints Kinnell that he feels like crying and thinks it unfair that all their toil of picking and storing the berries should come to naught:
‘The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair” (Line 20-22).
However, in Heaney’ss case there is ...